Despite gains among its rivals, Twitch still accounts for 82% of streaming hours

For years have Logitech-owned creator dashboard Streamlabs and its data partner Stream Hatchet has produced quarterly progress reports for the streaming industry. The report for the third quarter of 2024 shows a status quo that may surprise some observers. Despite noticeable increases for platforms such as Kick and AfreecaTVAmazon owned Ryk is still the undisputed leader among streamers accounting for more than 82% of all streaming hours during the 3rd quarter.

Twitch’s challengers are coming, but they aren’t serious threats yet

Kick, a venture backed by the founders of gambling hub Stake.commade waves when it debuted in late 2022. Streamers bragged about the thousands of dollars they’d made on Kick over a short period of time, and the platform wooed big stars like xQc and Amouranth with expensive, exclusive contracts.

Some of that momentum is still going strong. The Streamlabs report showed that Kick’s total watch time has doubled year-over-year and reached 533.9 million hours in total in Q3 2024. A driving force behind this growth is pure volume; total streaming hours on Kick approached eight million during Q3 2024, after being around six million a year ago. It’s clear that Kick’s platform-wide investments, such as its Incentives Program, bring some breadth to its community.

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Still, those numbers pale in comparison to Twitch. The reigning champion of live streaming had 5.14 billion hours of viewing time and 212 million total hours streamed in Q3 2024. YouTube Gaming came in a distant second place with 1.94 billion hours of viewing time and 14.5 million total hours streamed.

The number of unique channels on Kick appears to have plateaued after surpassing 500,000 during Q2 2023. That number fell below 400,000 in the latest Streamlabs report (which is only 22 times less than Twitch’s 9.16 million unique streamers in the same time frame). A potential reason for the decline could be the declining popularity of exclusive streamer contracts, which were one of the primary tactics Kick used to attract high-level talent. Cultural issues may also contribute to Kick’s streamer exodus.

Twitch is home to the “long tail” of the streaming industry

The Streamlabs report includes several pie charts (including the one pictured above) that spell out Twitch’s dominance of the streaming space. In addition to accounting for 82% of streaming hours in Q3, the 13-year-old hub is also home to a huge 85% of unique streaming channels.

In terms of viewing time, the playing field is more level. Twitch claims about 60% of that pie, with YouTube Gaming, Kick and Korean upstarts AfreecaTV and CHZZK claiming significant chunks of attention. Based on this data, we can conclude that Twitch has more smaller channels than its competitors, with its viewership less concentrated among high-performing broadcasts.

Twitch’s control over streaming’s long tail invites a comparison YouTubewhere the long tail of long-form creators have long been active (sorry, that’s a lot of long ones.) It’s no surprise, then, that Twitch is dealing with many of the same issues that YouTube ran into during the 2010s. When you host a large number of creators, it can be difficult to standardize communication and revenue streams across the platform. That’s something Twitch is finding out the hard way.

The streaming landscape may look completely different in a year

Three years ago, Kick didn’t exist and AfreecaTV had barely expanded from its core Korean market. Back then, Streamlabs’ reports measured services such as Facebook games and Blender which has since faded.

For now, Twitch is still the top dog in streaming, as it was a year ago. But things could quickly change. Right-leaning streaming hub Rumble had a coming-of-age party on Election Day where it set viewership records. Will it still thrive in a year? Will Kick continue to grow, or will the promise of its early days fade? Can Twitch keep its massive community happy?

Thanks to Streamlabs and Stream Hatchet, we will be able to update the answers to these questions on a quarterly basis. Until then, you can view the latest report by clicking here.